The City of Lost Children (1995)

Absolutely amazing

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

If it wasn't for having to watch this movie for completion purposes for a movie challenge I am doing I would have turned it off probably 10 minutes into it (yeah I know I could have changed to so many other choices but once my decision was made of the challenge movie then I feel like I should stick to it). I honestly have no idea what I just watched, I mean I get the basis of the story, even if it made virtually no sense to me whatsoever but honestly the whole thing seemed ridiculous. Now don't get me wrong, I can deal with ridiculousness in a movie but there is a limit. The over the topness just took away from the movie and put me way out of place, not allowing me to emphasise at all with any character or even care in the slightest what was going on. I really don't recommend this movie.

Set in a dystopian society, someone is kidnapping the children. Krank and his band of clones are using the children to harvest their dreams. Then they kidnap Denree, the brother of One, a fairground strongman. One sets out to find his brother...Quite inane and often incoherent, yet it works (to a degree). Initially quite intriguing, the plot soon become quite random. At a point you stop trying to make sense of it all and just go along for the ride.And what a ride it is. The pace is frenetic and the movie fun and this papers over many of the flaws in the plot.Written and directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also gave us the equally-weird Delicatessen. The City of Lost Children isn't of the same quality as Delicatessen, however, as Delicatessen made more sense in the end and had some interesting themes running through it. The City of Lost Children has no real claims in the themes department and is purely about the fun.

The story is both very simple and so complicated at the same time, set in a steam punk city with no name a mad scientist named Krank has set up a lab on an oil rig on the outskirts of the city. Krank has a gang of Cyclops men. A gang who are blind in one eye and use the aid of a machine to enhance their sight and hearing to kidnap children as young as possible but old enough to dream so that he can steal them and stop him aging, currently Krank is unable to dream and believes stealing the young kids dreams will make him live longer. What Krank doesn't understand though is that because the children are being stolen and scared the dreams they are having are only nightmares. A carnival strong man with a young mentality called One played by Ron Pearlman (Hellboy, Drive) goes searching for his brother Dunree and happens across conjoined twin sisters known as la Pieuvre (the Octopus in English) who send young kids of the city to steal what they can in dead of the night. One joins the thieves and in particular a young girl named Miette for a big steal, he spies his little brother amongst the Cyclops gang and attempts to steal him back. Everything soon changes though the night one of the dreams escapes and enters the city…There is a lot that goes on within this film and I haven't yet mentioned the Midget woman or the clones who constantly bicker about who is the original or even the brain in a box that tends to manipulate everyone it can or the music box that controls fleas. This film is so dark in nature and so amazingly beautiful, the directors took 14 years to bring this idea to film so they have had a lot of thought go into it. It's one of the first films to make full use of CGI as well which is very apparent in some amazing scenes. The unnamed city the story is set in is a very dark and twisted place but again so magnificent in its landscape, the way the city comes together can only been seen to be believed. The score really helps the film along as well, the right music is played in the right places and never gets in the way of anything. City of the Lost Children is filled with wonder and amazement from its opening scenes to its last it's a world within a world where escapism is only limited by your own imagination. The characters that have been developed are intense and so very well played and lastly I'll mention the beautiful cinematography without the close ups, unusual angels and filming techniques this film would most likely be very ordinary its these amazing sequences of footage that really help the film become what it is.Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro not only directed the film but also helped script it as well. The City of Lost Children is a French spoken film but those desperate enough should be able to find an English dubbed version without having to look too hard. Again I will say… Don't bother with the dubbed version you need the actual spoken word to her all the film has to offer within even though it is written words on the bottom of the screen, the language spoken and its tones is gorgeous especially during the sentimental moments.

Step right this way into the nightmare/fantasy world of this truly bizarre, freaky and phenomenally weird tale that comes at you straight from hell.Very quirky and curious, The City Of Lost Children (TCOLC) is definitely something of an original (it's actually hard to believe this is even possible in this "been there/seen that" age of filmdom that we live in these days).You can be sure that this is one far-out fairy tale that you'll never, ever see coming to you from the likes of Disney Studios.This undoubtedly strange, and, yes, unsettling little tale is sure to leave quite a lasting impression on the viewer long after the closing credits have rolled on by.Directed with a truly astonishing visual flair, TCOLC puts a unique, new twist (that's very dark and surreal) on the familiar "Mad Scientist" theme. (This is the sort of twisted twist that seems to work its magic about 75% of the time) Set in an awesome "otherworld" of shadows and light, TCOLC's story revolves around the doings of Dr. Krank (a total mad scientist, if you've ever seen one) who has his team of cloned henchmen abduct the young children of the city whom he wants for his experiments.Using a most unusual contraption, Krank (who is aging prematurely) then attempts to steal the dreams of these innocent babes because he, himself, cannot dream.This is one of those films where trying to go into any great detail about its story would only be an utter waste of time. You really need to see TCOLC for yourself to fully appreciate it for the richness of vision that it has to offer.On the down side - 2 of TCOLC's drawbacks were that its story has a tendency to be quite uneven at times and actor Ron Perlman (whom I do not like) has a substantial role in the scheme of things.These 2 deficits are actually quite minor, though, in comparison to the up-side of this mighty weird and entertaining gem.